Alexplorer's Halloween page: Lights: A primer for Halloween

Lights: A primer for Halloween
Lights are an important and usually overlooked component of Halloween. I keep seeing bad and unimaginative applications of lighting. Here is a primer on different types of lights and what you can do with them.

Party bulbs - These are usually CFLs these days and are widely available in a lot of colors, even purple and amber (in addition to red, green, and blue). They are great for coloring small areas or even doing entire small rooms. Example uses:

Spotlights on ghosts in the yard (you get a ghost of any color you like if you shine them on a white sheet.
Mood lighting a darkroom full of crime scene photos in the bathroom.

Floodlights - Stronger than the party bulbs. As of this writing, I'm only just starting to see colored floodlights that aren't incandescent: red, blue, green, and yellow. These are higher wattage and are designed to spread light over large areas. Example use:

Painting the graveyard in the front yard an eerie green.

Blacklights - There are a lot of varieties of bulbs capable of giving off blacklight: large banks of lights, CFL bulbs, fluorescent tubes, etc. Good for soooo many effects! See Blacklight primer for details and techniques. Some example uses:

Light up anything with glow-in-the-dark paint such as the Countdown Clock.
Light up glow-in-the-dark toys/props such as the stars in our dining room.
Fluorescent colors such as posterboard will work as in our hallway.

LED lights - These are usually too small to provide much more than an accent light wherever they're directed. However, this is likely to change over the next few years as LED bulbs become more reasonably priced. Example uses:

I have small solar-powered LED lights aimed at the gravestones in the front yard so that they can be read at night.
These are also good for lightning effects if you have a light organ (aka a color organ) that uses sound to trigger them.

Xmas light strands - There are several varieties of these sold every year, and the stuff always looks bad. Don't bother with it. Spotlights and properly-placed party bulb CFLs are far more effective at creating an atmosphere.

C7 and C9 Xmas lights - These usually come in strands of 25 bulbs, give or take. However, you can alter the number of bulbs on a given strand (see links below) to better fit it to your uses. These bulbs are very low wattage, so they're just powerful enough to light up a prop without melting it or overwhelming it with too much light. Example uses:

The glowing skulls I placed on the roof.
A strand of small plastic pumpkins to light the back porch.
Lighting up props from the inside such as I did with Halloween Jack's head.
I have seen people build blinking eyes for use in their gardens or windows.

Rope lights - These are good for a lot of different effects, everything from being featured prominently to just having low-wattage colored light distributed evenly. Note: Get the LED lights. They are much more efficient and durable than the older incandecent variety. Example uses:

Around the flying saucer that crashed in our yard.
On the underside of the pool table to light up the floor in the dining room so folks could find their way to the bathroom without tripping. This distributed the light without it diminishing the effect of the blacklights in the room.

Flicker bulbs - These are the only variety of incandescent bulbs I still use, only because there are no CFLs or LEDs capable of the effect as yet. Example uses:

A lamppost I built out front out of PVC that has a flicker bulb inside to emulate a gas flame.
I put flicker bulbs in the chandelier in the dining room.

Color-changing LED bulbs - These are a great way to make a prop come alive and stand out rather than simply sitting there glowing just one color. An alternative to these is to use pumpkin lights that do essentially the same thing. However, I've had bad luck with these in that they're low-quality and tend not to last very long before one or more color elements goes bad.

In saucer dome/cockpit. They made it seem to be pulsing with life rather than simply a crashed and probably abandoned vehicle.
To light up the haunted tvs.

Strobe lights - There are a lot of different size and shape strobes, everything from bulb to cannon and a wire range of wattages. Which you should use depends on your application. Example uses:

These work well inside of some props. For example, I have strobe lights in several of the haunted tvs.
As whole-room lights to create a confusing and intense atmosphere.
Place things in front of the strobe so that it forms a silhouette through the window.
I haven't tried this yet, but I thought about having them outside of my windows, directed inward during the party.

Fire - Other than the sun, it's the original source of light. Of course, be careful and realize you put your guests and children at risk, so use them appropriately. Example uses:

Real torches with monster heads on the deck out back.
Luminarias leading up the walkway on Halloween night and the night of our party.

Specialty lights - Some lights are built into props specifically designed to look like a kind of light.

Fake torches leading to and on the back porch.

Small LED lights - These can be purchased individually from any electronic components store (e.., Radio Shack) or in bulk from eBay.

Monster eyes. They are good for eyes in skeletons, crank ghosts, and all sorts of other creatures.
Sci-fi props. I have seen these put to use in fake circuit boards, computers, etc. They can also be powered by a circuit that animates them. Some xmas lights have this built in.

Note: When at all possible, don't bother with incandescent lights. They're hotter than fluorescents or LEDs and in some cases will melt anything around them if you're going to use them in or near props. It's worth it to spend a little more for the modern technologies, and often those will have additional advantages beyond the obvious things relating to efficiency (e.g., less heat, last longer, and cheaper to operate). Their efficiency is even more relevant for your home lighting. If you haven't already, switch over to CFLs or even LEDs.

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